From:

[link to www.skyandtelescope.com]

However, the results were more positive from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which was nearly overhead in its polar orbit and only 48 miles (76 km) from ground zero.

For example, all four of the heat-sensing channels on LRO's Diviner instrument picked up a pulse of warmth from the impact site after the crash. According to the Diviner team's news blog, the "hot pixels" in their scans imply that "the LCROSS impact resulted in significant local heating of the lunar surface."

The LAMP instrument (Lyman-Alpha Mapping Project) on LRO viewed the plume from the LCROSS crash against the dark sky beyond the lunar limb. "We do see a blip in total signal beginning a few tens of seconds after the impact," comments principal investigator Alan Stern (Southwest Research Institute). "There are several lines that show up, like one we think is Al III [doubly ionized aluminum]; those are most likely due to the spacecraft and perhaps some lunar material that has vaporized."


Update (October 10th): So far two instruments on the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) have positive detections. LAMP, an ultraviolet spectrometer, has a confirmed detection of the ejecta plume, and its team has begun analyzing that data. The Diviner instrument, which measures surface temperatures, has recorded before/after changes at the impact site.


•At Keck Observatory in Hawaii, Diane Wooden (NASA/ Ames Research Center) used the 10-meter Keck II telescope with its Near-Infrared Echelle Spectrograph (NIRSPEC) to look for the signature of water vapor. According to a Keck press release, "Wooden and the other LCROSS astronomers are currently evaluating the spectroscopic data collected at Keck and the other Mauna Kea observatories for the water-vapor signature. The team plans to report their results early next week."

Theorists predicted that the rocket's strike should kick up 350 tons of debris and create a flash in visible light. From Earth's viewpoint, the flash site was hidden by the rim of the target crater. No one knew how visible the transient debris plumes rising above the crater wall might be during the next minute or so, but LCROSS scientists estimated that the main plume might appear about as bright as the lunar surface itself in the area and, as seen from Earth, a few arcseconds in size at its peak.


My comments...in other words, damn hard to see!